Cheiromancer
by verys
Summary: Five years later, Touya takes his hand.


Touya's still sitting in his customary place tucked in the corner at the furthest end of Waya's couch and while Hikaru feels the familiar squiggle of guilt inside of himself at having talked Touya into coming to yet another party he's not enjoying, it's not until he notices Touya idly spinning his empty bottle about in his hands with a decidedly un-Touyalike carelessness that he thinks to pull away from Waya's rambling story about some shopping trip or other with Shigeko-chan.

"Yeah," Hikaru says vaguely, clapping a hand on Waya's shoulder in solidarity. "That sucks. I mean, that's great, sorry, whatever; you know what I mean. Sorry; excuse me," he says, weaving past first Isumi then next around the tight tangle of Nase, Saeki and Honda so that he can sit down in the empty space on the couch next to Touya.

"Huh," Hikaru says, partly at Touya, partly at himself. Hikaru's slowed the pace of his drinking considerably in the past hour, and to find the room still spinning is a surprise. "You're totally bored out of your mind, aren't you?" he says.

Touya holds the bottle carefully in both hands, his attention focused upon Hikaru as his eyes make several slow, deliberate blinks. "I am having a very pleasant evening, Shindou. Thank you for inviting me," he says, looking somehow at once both very serious and yet quietly childish.

"Come on," Hikaru says, getting back up. "Let's go join Waya and Isumi. Waya's telling totally embarrassing stories about him and Morishita-sensei's daughter; it's horrible; you'll love it," he assures him.

Touya leans over to set his bottle down on the side-table next to three others. It takes Hikaru's alcohol-soaked brain some time to put one and one together; it's not until Touya, despite accepting the offer of Hikaru's outstretched hand, manages not only to stumble over his own feet in his attempt to get upright but to pull Hikaru tumbling back down to the couch with him that Hikaru realises that Touya is where over half of the nashi chuhai has gone.

"You're totally drunk," Hikaru says wonderingly. Touya's been drinking with them before but has only ever imbibed to the point of becoming somehow even prissier than before he's had any alcohol.

Touya sits up, straightening his posture with all of the respectable dignity he still possesses. "I am not," Touya says, but he's owl-eyed and off-balance and this is totally the best birthday Hikaru's ever had.

"So," Waya says from above them. "He's more interesting than I am, huh?"

Hikaru turns to face Waya with his most even expression. "I'm rescuing Touya," he says seriously.

Waya looks down between them and Hikaru notices that he's still sort of holding Touya's hand for some reason and when he looks back up, Waya is giving him his very smuggest look. "I can see that."

It's only because Hikaru's so tipsy that such a useless remark causes him to flush; they've been over this again and again and it's not Hikaru's fault that Waya keeps making comments like his rivalry with Touya is, like, too intense or something, like that's even possible, so clearly Waya doesn't understand anything and it's no freakin' wonder he's been stuck at 2-dan for like ever, or at least long enough for Hikaru to catch up.

Touya is staring at their hands with intense concentration, as if they can tell him something. Then he looks up to Hikaru, eyes ocean-dark and dilated from the dimness of the lighting in the room. "Do you remember the second time we met, back when we were twelve?" he asks Hikaru.

"Yeah," Hikaru says, of course he does. He's always going to remember the sight of Touya's eyes narrowed with such ferocity, the sound of Touya's broken sobs of anguish as he choked out his resignation. It took him days before he stopped seeing the sheen of the tear-tracks on Touya's face every time he closed his eyes.

"Ooh, are we sharing now? Because I'm pretty sure everyone is dying to hear the story of how you two met. We all thought Shindou was full of shit when he showed up to insei class running off at the mouth about you, and he's never told us how your paths even crossed in the first place," Waya says.

"He came to my father's salon and played the most beautiful go I'd ever seen," Touya says, and it's supposed to be a compliment to Hikaru maybe but all it does is wrap envy around Hikaru's heart so tightly he could choke on it. Maybe it was naïve to think that years of Hikaru's go could erase the sheer transcendental beauty of Sai's, to think that Touya of all people could ever forget a game.

And then all thought flees from his mind when Touya runs his fingers along the back of Hikaru's hand with an unmistakable surety.

Tension curls around inside his belly; sort-of accidentally not-on-purpose hand-holding is one thing, but Touya touching his fingers with the same sort of focused determination he wears while touching the stones is an entirely different beast.

Touya's fingertips slide against his, and Hikaru bites his tongue hard to try and refocus his body's attention on something that has no chance of causing totally inappropriate erections in front of Waya.

"Do you remember?" Touya asks again, voice a thoughtful murmur. "I remember what your hand felt like then," he continues, and Hikaru's blood is rising in his cheeks and Waya is right there and Touya can't possibly be doing this and he's just as confused now as he was the last time Touya touched him like this almost five years ago.

"Um," is all Hikaru can squeak, and when Touya glides his fingers once more along his, between his, all he can do is breathe in sharply.

"You used to hold the stones between your fingertips," Touya says. "But now you have calluses, and a flat in your fingernail," he says, touching those things as he names them, and something shudders inside Hikaru's heart as things fall into place.

Hikaru had been blindsided all those years ago, hadn't understood what was happening with the strange boy who had been so intensely demanding of him, but whenever he stopped to wonder just how his feelings for Touya had gotten so complicated the answer had been surprisingly easy: Touya had poured all of his focus upon him, and when that focus shattered on the day of the middle-school tournament Hikaru spent almost two and a half years desperately trying to earn it back, wearing the memory of it over and over until it was smooth and polished like a grain of sand too long inside a clam.

It's all go, everything, all of it. Touya is his rival, has been his rival long before he became a friend, is in fact his friend only in service to their rivalry. A way to engender familiarity, to build thickness, to deepen the connection between their go.

"Yeah, well, I learnt," he says abruptly, tearing his hand from Touya's, and sense-memory echoes within him. Just like before, he thinks. Only now I understand.

"Shindou," Touya says, and now the only thing his name on Touya's lips makes him feel is empty.

"It's late," Hikaru says, getting to his feet. "And you're totally not in any shape to play a game." He steps backwards and bumps into Waya, who steadies him with firm hands on his shoulders.

Touya's eyes flash. "I'm always ready to face you," he insists, getting up and standing tall and straight and glowering down at Hikaru. "Stop running away."

"I'm not running," Hikaru glares.

"Aww, kids," Waya says, giving Hikaru's shoulder a squeeze before he steps back and adopts what is supposed to be a sagely pose, arms crossed and thoughtful. "And you almost made it through the whole night without a single fight. Come on; it's Shindou's birthday. Kiss and make up."

Hikaru hopes he didn't jerk as violently at Waya's phrasing as he thinks he did. "We're not fighting," he snaps at the same time as Touya says "This isn't a fight."

"I was trying to say something important," Touya continues. "But of course Shindou can't be serious for more than five seconds at a time unless you put a goban in front of him." Then, realizing what he's said, Touya grabs his wrist. "Shindou-play me. Right now. Play me," he repeats.

Hikaru jerks away; he's had enough of Touya's hands for one night. "Right now? Are you kidding? No way! We're playing tomorrow at the salon, anyway." It's just after midnight and Touya is drunk and Hikaru's pretty sauced himself and the only thing between them is go. And now he sort of understands where Touya's gone with this, why this is where all of their roads lead, and Hikaru is suddenly very tired. "I won't play you," he says quietly.

"You always run away," Touya says, which doesn't make a lick of sense because what has Hikaru been doing for the past four years if not chasing Touya as hard and as fast as he can?

"I do not!" Hikaru protests.

"You do too!" Touya counters. "You wouldn't come back to the salon so I had to join the school club just to get you to play me in the tournament. And after that it was two years and four months before we played again-"

And it's such a ridiculous injustice that Touya is somehow able to say it like it's Hikaru's fault. "You were so freaking disappointed that you never even wanted to see me again!" And he's yelling now, they both are, and everyone is probably looking at them but fine, this was Touya's idea, so what does he care?

"And when you became a pro you just disappeared!" Touya shouts, clenching his hands into fists. "You just vanished for months and you wouldn't listen to me when I begged you to come back-no, you listen to Isumi of all people! Then not even three months later you decide that you're not going to play me again for some stupid arbitrary reason-"

"It wasn't stupid!" Hikaru screeches. Someone grabs his shoulder but he shakes it off, taking a step closer to Touya in the process. Touya holds his ground, eyes narrowing as he looks down at Hikaru with the advantage of his two unsurmountable inches, and the anger inside Hikaru swirls into an incendiary fury. "You were already confirmed as first board for the Hokuto Cup; how could you take me seriously when I hadn't even qualified?"

Touya doesn't shy away; instead he takes a step of his own, leaning in so closely that Hikaru can see the ring of darker blue around Touya's brilliant bright irises, can taste the sweet scent of pears on Touya's breath. "It was stupid!" Touya insists. "Do you think I care what rank you are, what tournaments you've qualified for? Do you think that winning purses makes you a better player? None of it matters; nothing else matters-"

"It matters!" Hikaru protests because it has to, it all has to mean something because otherwise he gains nothing, becomes nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and he's never going to catch Touya. "I'm never going to stop improving-"

"Stop missing the point!" Touya explodes, words pouring out of him faster and faster. "We play when you want to play. When you don't want to play, we don't play. I'm tired of being subject to your whims, Shindou; I'm tired of letting you jerk me around-"

"Wait-" Hikaru interrupts desperately, because this can't be what it sounds like, Touya can't seriously be saying this, and there has to be something Hikaru can say to stop it. "Touya, don't-I'm not-this isn't-Touya," he says faintly, clenching his hands into fists so he won't feel them shake anymore.

"How much longer are you going to keep running away?" Touya demands. "You told me once that you were going to make me see you for you, not as a shadow of anything else. And you were right," Touya says, voice threaded with an almost-undetectable waver that lies as threat of the absolutely molten fury that has turned Touya's irises a vivid and unforgiving teal. "I see you for what you are, what you're going to be. You're all I can see, all I can think about; what more can you possibly want? What more can I possibly give you? Why isn't it enough for you? How do I keep you from running away?"

They're standing far too close; Hikaru can see the faint green highlights in Touya's so-blue irises, can count the strands of his hair, can see the chapping of Touya's lips. Everything is too hot and too loud and suddenly, desperately, Hikaru needs to get some air. He steps backwards, but manages only one before Touya is lunging towards him, grabbing his hand, pulling him forward, meshing their fingers together, squeezing so hard Hikaru can feel his hand trembling. "Tell me," he demands.

"Touya, I-" he breaks off, trying to find the words. "I'm not, okay? I can't; no matter what I do, no matter what you do, we're always going to be rivals; we have forever, okay?" He bites his lip hard, squeezing Touya's hand just as tightly as Touya is squeezing his. "We're going to play," Hikaru says, "at the salon and at your house and at my house and at the Institute and in ooteai and in league matches and in tournaments and exhibitions."

Touya's mouth is set in a flat line and his eyes blaze. "Shindou-" he says, but Hikaru isn't finished.

And it's stupid, and maybe yeah, he is a little obsessive, but he knows he's not the only one and if anyone can appreciate that fact it's Touya. "Tomorrow we're gonna play our hundredth game, you know? This time next year it'll be five hundred. We're going to play hundreds of games, thousands of games; we'll be sixty years old playing our ten thousandth game and it's never going to be enough but it's okay, because we'll just keep playing, you and me, and we'll always play, okay? We're always going to play," he says, searching Touya's brilliant eyes desperately for some sign of softening or appeasement or acceptance but finding only that same glassy shine that makes Hikaru feel twelve years old again. Memories flicker in the back of Hikaru's mind as he tries to place when was the last time he's seen Touya like this, and he has to go all the way back to the middle school tournament when Touya had shrieked at him, panting so hard his shoulders were heaving, strands of his normally-perfect hair wild and caught between his lips.

"Touya," Hikaru begins again, biting his lip, throat tight. They stand for moments, seconds, minutes, hours, maybe, and everything's gone quiet around them. It's far from the first time they've made a scene with one of their fights but it feels different somehow, dangerous. It feels strange, like something's changed: a mood broken, a game left incomplete without sealing the last move. He knows that if he says the wrong thing, something irreparable and irredeemable is going to happen, and the fear that he's already said it is paralyzing for long seconds until he forces himself to backtrack. "I-I mean, I thought-but if you-I mean, if you don't-if you don't want" that, he means to say, but "me" is what comes out of his mouth, the word hanging in the air as his train of thought derails entirely in cringing horror.

Laugh, he tries to command himself. It's funny; laugh. Make it a joke, say something witty. Say it was an accident. But it's too late: Touya's eyes have already blown wide and his nails have already dug into the back of Hikaru's hand and then there's a flurry of movement as Touya lunges forward and there's a hand on his cheek and teeth slicing across his lip and clattering against his and lips pressed against his own and Hikaru barely has time to register the thought before they're gone and Touya's wrenched his hand out of Hikaru's and Touya is staring at him as if Hikaru's just fire to a goban.

Touya, Hikaru wants to say but can't, and through the thundering of his pulse pounding in his ears he can hear the hissed whispers around them.

"Did you see that?"

"Did Touya just-"

"That was insane, did you just see-"

"-it was a kiss, wasn't it?"

"Did Shindou and Touya just kiss?"

A kiss, he thinks, the word rattling around inside his brain. A kiss.

Hikaru runs his tongue along the stinging gash on his lip, the coppery tang of blood cutting through the whispering memory of sweet pear.

Touya's eyes are glassy and dark, his pupils swallowing all but the slimmest ring of brilliant azure. Touya brings a hand to his own mouth, fingertips brushing along his lips.

"Touya," Hikaru says, voice shaking.

Touya stiffens. "I-" he starts, and while Hikaru has never, ever seen this look on Touya's face before, Hikaru has run from enough battles himself to recognize the sentiment.

"Touya-" he repeats, and when Touya takes a step back Hikaru takes it with him, and then a second that brings him face to face where Hikaru can lean up on his toes and grab Touya's tie and yank him down for a kiss.

Touya's mouth opens against his to mark some form of protest, but Hikaru cuts it off abruptly when he captures Touya's upper lip between his own. Letting go of his tie so he can cradle Touya's face in his hands, Hikaru shuts his eyes and focuses on pouring all his concentration upon Touya: kiss me back, he thinks as hard as he can, kiss me back, kiss me kiss me kiss me-

And Touya's lips move against his, and his tongue brushes Hikaru's lip, and then Touya's tongue slides into his mouth and oh God Touya's kissing him, actually kissing him, and Hikaru can feel every move Touya makes telegraphed in the motion of his jaw in Hikaru's hands.

Touya's arm slides around his waist, pulling him closer, and Hikaru thrusts his tongue as deeply into Touya's mouth as he can, tracing the smooth sharp line of his teeth before Touya's tongue strokes his with insistent need. Then Touya's free hand is in his hair, fingernails scraping lightly at his scalp even as he tugs on hair caught in his tightening fist, and Hikaru actually whimpers into Touya's mouth before he can catch himself. Touya pulls back to break the kiss and Hikaru has milliseconds to wonder if it's possible to die of embarrassment before Touya's mouth is on his again, stealing a kiss at a new angle, then once more again, and again, and again.

The arm at his waist squeezes tighter, urging him even closer, and there's no possible way they could get any closer with their clothes on, and oh God Touya naked is the best thought Hikaru's ever had and it's something that maybe might even actually happen to him someday, holy shit. Then Touya's tongue forces its way back into Hikaru's mouth again and it's like sex, it's like Touya's having sex with his mouth and Hikaru wants it, wants everything Touya can give him, and he's not ever going to be able to stop-

-and then there is the earsplitting shriek of a wolf-whistle, so loud it's actually painful, and the reality that they're not alone but are in fact in front of practically everyone they know comes crashing down upon Hikaru with violent clarity. Eyes flashing open, he wrenches himself away from Touya just as Touya's doing the same, and the breath has been stolen from his lungs and he's panting; they both are, shoulders heaving with the effort as if they've just played three games of hayago in a row, and Hikaru would give the entire purse of his first title to be able to decipher what the shape of Touya's eyes mean about the thoughts behind them.

Hikaru swallows hard, trying to rid his mouth of its sudden dryness. "Um," he starts lamely. "It's kind of crowded in here, huh?" he asks with a halfhearted laugh as he looks around the room. Some people are decidedly not looking in their direction, but next to them Waya is gawking, Isumi is holding a perfect poker-face, and Ochi is staring slack-jawed in open revulsion. "Yeah, let's get out of here; c'mon," he says, grabbing Touya's hand and dragging him along as he darts towards the door, the crowd of people parting before them.

Nase holds up her hands together in the shape of a heart. "I don't think there are any love hotels in walking distance; want me to call you a taxi?" she coos.

Hikaru's pretty sure he's blushing all the way to his ears; he just tugs harder on Touya's hand as he ignores the pile of shoes in the entryway and opens the door to the landing.

"Wait-" Touya protests, and after everything he cannot seriously care about getting his socks dirty, because Hikaru is pretty sure that he'll be able to talk Waya into lending them both socks and it's definitely more important that they get out of here right now because someone is making kissy noises at them and while he's pretty sure it's probably Nase he really, really doesn't need to find out.

The autumn night air is blessedly cool against his flushed skin, and as they race down three flights of stairs to the ground Hikaru thinks he might even be able to find his equilibrium again.

Hikaru rounds the corner to get out of sight of the door before stopping. Steeling his resolve, he turns to face Touya, who stands not five feet away looking a dizzying blend of composed in his slim-fitted Oxford shirt and worsted wool trousers, and disheveled with his Shelbey-knotted tie pulled out of symmetry and his hair mussed, flyaway strands haloed by the headlamps of a car as it passes by. Hikaru could pretend that they've just spent four hours on an exhibition stage, or just finished dissecting a particularly thorny sequence that's inspired them both to new heights-but only for a moment, because no matter how hard he tries he will never, ever forget the moment when he finally discovered the shape of Touya's lips when pressed against his own.

He and Touya stare at each other for long moments. It doesn't seem like Touya's about to say anything, so Hikaru draws a shaky breath and says "Hey."

Touya blinks as if caught off-guard, but the tension melts away from his shoulders and his tone is measured and even when he says "Shindou."

"So, um," Hikaru begins, not quite sure what he had meant to say other than wanting to ask 'can we do it again?'. "You too, huh?"

"What?" Touya asks.

And now that he's supposed to put this in words it could be terrifying, but he's resolved not to listen to the pounding of his heart nor pay heed to the weight in his chest because if he screws this up and runs away he knows he's never going to get another chance. "You know," Hikaru says, suddenly bashful. He lightly kicks Touya's socked foot with his, and it doesn't hit him until it's too late that he's kind of playing footsie with his eternal rival. "This. You, me, us," he says, ducking his gaze. "I mean, that's why you did it, right?"

"Shindou..." Touya trails off with uncharacteristic hesitance. "Upstairs, you-" and Touya finds the words just as unsayable as Hikaru does, apparently, because he doesn't finish his sentence.

Hikaru flushes. "You totally started it!" he protests.

"You're the one who kept saying all those things about how the two of us were going to be together! How else could you have possibly meant it?" Touya fights back.

"Okay, but like, I meant about our go," Hikaru argues. "Not-not anything else."

He's managed to salvage at least some shreds of his dignity but Touya fails to look impressed, instead maintaining his challenging expression. "You're wrong, by the way," Touya says calmly, as if they're merely sitting across the goban from each other in the salon.

"I was totally talking about our go!" Hikaru reaffirms, hoping his voice didn't actually get as high as it sounded in his own ears.

"We've already played our hundredth game," Touya says. "Thursday night. It-it was why I suggested a fourth game."

"Insisted, you mean, you totally bossy jerk. And you're completely wrong; that was game 97," Hikaru corrects him, annoyed.

"It was game 100! I've tracked every single game we've played going back to that December in elementary school, and-" Touya begins to recount, and Hikaru cuts him off right there.

"Those first three games don't count!" Hikaru says.

Touya's brow furrows. "You can't say they don't count just because they weren't professional games; then you can't count any of the others at the salon or at my house, and by that measure we've played only twice."

"What? No, dummy, of course those count. Just the first three-well, two and a half?" Hikaru asks, wondering if taking over Sai's game just counts as Hikaru taking a really big handicap or if it should be scrubbed entirely from the record.

"The first..." Touya trails off thoughtfully. "Sai's games?"

"Yeah, they totally don't-" Hikaru starts, breaking off when he realizes just what Touya's said.

They haven't talked about Sai since the day of their first Meijin league match. Hikaru's been too busy being grateful Touya hasn't pushed to realize that just because Touya hasn't been asking him things it doesn't mean Touya hasn't been thinking them.

His heart pounds in his throat; Touya knows so much already, knows more than anyone else, knows his go better than anyone else and can see the the traces of Sai woven throughout, and if the truth was anything other than the literally unbelievable he would have told Touya a thousand times over already.

Touya's jaw is set and Hikaru can see the bob of his Adam's apple as Touya swallows, his expression tempered and temperate. Touya's holding back, he realises, Touya of the impassioned eyes and relentless pursuit is holding his tongue and waiting on Hikaru.

He draws a shaky breath. "Sai's games don't count," he says quietly.

"Then I look forward to tomorrow with even greater anticipation," Touya says.

"Touya-Touya, I-" Hikaru starts, but Touya cuts him off.

"We don't have to talk about Sai now," Touya says with only the faintest trace of hesitation. "It's okay. I can wait for someday. When you're ready, when you want to tell me, I'll listen."

"I do," Hikaru blurts. "Want to tell you. About Sai. You're the only one I can tell. I will, okay?" And he has no idea how he's going to, only that he has to, that someday he needs to make sure that Touya knows, that Touya understands, and somehow everything is going to be all right.

"It's okay," Touya repeats. "You're my eternal rival. We have forever," he says, offering Hikaru his own words with quiet sincerity.

"We're rivals," Hikaru says softly. "And... friends, right?"

"Of course," Touya says without hint of hesitation.

And, Hikaru wants to say. And more, right?

Given what's already happened, it should be easy-or at least not this hard. And yet the seconds slip by and with them they take his sense of grounding, his sense of reality. Did it even really happen? Did he hallucinate the whole thing? It happened, right?

A kiss. More than a kiss: kisses, and Touya kissed him first, and then kissed him back, and he has to want this too, has to want it as much as Hikaru does.

"Touya," Hikaru says, emboldened, reaching forward and taking Touya's hand in both of his. "You're really important to me. I-I care about you. About more than just your go, more than just our games. Though, um, I guess you've sort of figured that out by now?" he says, awkward embarrassment bubbling through him and up into nervous laughter.

Touya's eyes are fixed upon his with the same absolute unshakeable focus he brings to the goban. "That is to say, even before I-even before I kissed you, you've been thinking of me, too?" he asks, fingers flexing around his hand.

Hikaru squeezes back, rubbing his thumb along the smooth skin of the back of Touya's hand. He offers him a grin, or at least half of one, which is about all he can summon after everything. "Yeah," he says. "I, um. I really-" he starts, and then the voices inside his head yell "kiss him!"

Touya starts with a jolt, turning his head to look up, and when Hikaru follows his gaze he sees Waya, Isumi, Nase, and Saeki crowding on Waya's tiny balcony. Saeki's hands are still cupped around his mouth in a makeshift megaphone, and apparently Hikaru's not crazy, or at least hasn't discovered someone new rattling around inside his brain.

"Hurry up and kiss him!" Nase shouts.

Isumi's voice is quieter, but it still carries down to the ground. "Come on, come inside, let's let them have their moment," he says, which somehow is totally worse.

"Okay!" Nase bellows cheerfully. "Have a moment, then make out, then come back upstairs. It's still Shindou's birthday for another two hours! One hour! One and a half hours! Anyway, hurry up!"

"Can everyone just shut up?" Waya hollers, loudest of all. "You're going to get me evicted!"

"Shindou and Touya, sittin' in a tree..." Nase croons.

Hikaru turns away from the quartet on the balcony. "Oh my God, we need new friends," he complains.

Touya, the bastard, is clearly fighting to suppress a smile if the crinkling at the corners of his almond eyes is any indication. "Shall we?"

"What?" Hikaru asks. "Get new friends who aren't insane?"

And yeah, Touya's totally got that secretly smug look he gets when he thinks Hikaru's completely misread his shapes. "Kiss," Touya says. "If you would like to."

"I-" would like to, would really, really like to, he thinks, except. "Now? With everyone watching?" he anguishes, shutting his eyes. It does nothing to aid in the illusion that they two are alone; if anything it seems like Nase's sing-song chants of encouragement and Waya's reproving shouts have only grown louder.

"Pretend we're playing an exhibition match," Touya says serenely, leaning forward.

Hikaru has only enough time to splutter "That's totally not-" before Touya's mouth is on his and all notions of protest are dispelled into the aether.

It's different this time, different from before when their kisses were about kissing as hard and as close and as deeply as quickly as they could. This time Touya's mouth is soft against his, lips sliding against his with languid slowness, tongue delicate and teasing instead of forceful and imposing.

This is the beginning, he realises in a flash of sudden insight. Today is the first day in which he's kissed Touya, but it's not going to be the last. They'll kiss again and again, each time different, and he's going to learn Touya's mouth the way he's learned Touya's hands.

Hikaru breaks the kiss, leaning in so he can whisper in Touya's ear. "Seven."

Touya's lips brush against his earlobe, pausing to purse in a gentle kiss with a delicacy that sends Hikaru's senses spinning. "Eight," Touya murmurs, and of course he knows, of course he can read Hikaru just as easily when he hasn't laid any stones at all.

"Pfft, that wasn't on the mouth; that totally didn't count," Hikaru teases, arguing mostly for the sake of it.

Touya's lips slide down to his throat, and Hikaru would swear he can feel the pulse in his carotid thrum as Touya draws a kiss against it. "Nine."

"Seven," Hikaru insists, drawing Touya's attention upwards with two fingers under his chin.

Touya's eyes are bright and brilliant, his mouth curved in the kind of smile Hikaru has hungered desperately for years to be the cause of. "Clearly this is an unresolvable difference of opinion," he says.

"Well, yeah, 'cause you're wrong," Hikaru grins.

"Then I'll simply ensure you lose count, and the argument becomes moot," Touya says, leaning in. Hikaru leans up, and this time when their mouths meet it's with the practised ease of a favoured joseki.

Hikaru could no more stop counting their kisses than he could stop counting their games. Eight, he thinks, daring Touya to read his mind. Nine-

"Tweet tweet, lovebirds!" Saeki calls, causing Hikaru to startle backwards a step. "Come on back upstairs; we're gonna get in one last game of Ousama!"

And drunken Ousama sounds like pretty much the worst idea ever, at least compared to staying out here with Touya, but then there's the thing where people can totally see what they're doing and it's so, so weird how suddenly everybody knows what Hikaru's fought to keep secret for so long.

Everyone knows; everyone's seen. When they go back upstairs it won't just be as eternal rivals, but as something else as of yet unnamed.

Touya tilts his head in inquiry. "Ready?" he asks.

Sort of, maybe? How can you even prepare for something like this? Instead of answering, Hikaru slips his hand into Touya's and laces their fingers together. Touya closes their hands into a companionable clasp, and as Hikaru's thumb strokes down the heartline of Touya's hand he knows this is the start of a new game, the first in which they both will win.


End file.
